Hotels and Alcohol in Asuncion

From Resistencia we took the bus over into Paraguay.  The border crossing was quick and painless, except for the slightly worrying moment when they didn't give us or passports back.  We soon realised that no one was getting them back though. For some reason they give them all back to the bus driver, who then handed them back out.
In our quest to have a more relaxed pace, we had booked five nights in Asuncion, but it was split between two places.  Out first two nights were in an inexpensive hotel, a little out of the main area of town.  It was lovely.  The hotel was small, but the kind of place you might expect to see in a Mediterranean resort.  It had a garden courtyard, the ensuite rooms were huge, with great air conditioning, and the breakfast was a big buffet with bread, eggs, meats cheeses and lots of fresh fruit, which is quite a novelty.  And best of all, no mould or cockroaches!

It also had a good buffet dinner for £4.50, which we decided that was too good to pass up, so other than a quick drinks run to the supermarket for Nic, we didn't even bother to leave the place for the days we were there. We did however spend some time chatting with a couple who live in Newcastle, but have taken a year out to do a round the world trip, with three months in South America.  It was interesting to hear their plans, and we passed on a few tips about places to stay in some of their planned destinations.

But that brings me back to the trip to the supermarket.  Nic and the other guy went out just to buy some beer.  Nic came back with three litres of Brahma beer, a 75cl bottle of cachaca (a spirit made from sugar), a litre of Bacardi Gold rum and a litre and a half each of coke and sprite.  All for less than £13.  As someone commented at the time, with prices like that it would be rude to leave it in the shops!

So we didn't see anything of Asuncion in our first two days, but we did have a lovely respite from mould and cockroaches, and the rest did my back some good as it was a lot less painful by the time we left the hotel.